HANOVER, N.H. - April 14, 2021 - Scientists have searched for years to understand how cells measure their size. Cell size is critical. It's what regulates cell division in a growing organism. When the microscopic structures double in size, they divide. One cell turns into two. Two cells turn into four. The process repeats until an organism has enough cells. And then it stops. Or at least it is supposed to. The complete chain of events that causes cell division to stop at the right time is what has confounded scientists. Beyond being a textbook problem, the question relates to serious medical challenges: ...

LOS ANGELES (April 13, 2021) -- The Lundquist Institute (TLI) Investigator Dong W. Chang, MD, and his colleagues' study on critically ill patients and ICU treatments was published in JAMA Internal Medicine. The study - "Evaluation of Time-Limited Trials Among Critically Ill Patients with Advanced Medical Illnesses and Reduction of Nonbeneficial ICU Treatments" - found that training physicians to communicate with family members of critically ill patients using a structured approach, which promotes shared decision-making, improved the quality of family meetings. This intervention was associated with reductions in invasive ICU treatments that prolonged suffering without benefit for patients and their families. "Invasive ICU treatments are frequently delivered to patients ...

In April 2019, scientists released the first image of a black hole in galaxy M87 using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). However, that remarkable achievement was just the beginning of the science story to be told. Data from 19 observatories released today promise to give unparalleled insight into this black hole and the system it powers, and to improve tests of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. "We knew that the first direct image of a black hole would be groundbreaking," says Kazuhiro Hada of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, a co-author of a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters that ...

If global warming continues unchecked, summer monsoon rainfall in India will become stronger and more erratic. This is the central finding of an analysis by a team of German researchers that compared more than 30 state-of-the-art climate models from all around the world. The study predicts more extremely wet years in the future - with potentially grave consequences for more than one billion people's well-being, economy, food systems and agriculture. "We have found robust evidence for an exponential dependence: For every degree Celsius of warming, monsoon rainfalls will likely increase by about 5%," says lead author Anja Katzenberger from the Potsdam-Institute ...

A team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, with colleagues from Goethe University, Frankfurt, has found the first evidence for ancient honey hunting, locked inside pottery fragments from prehistoric West Africa, dating back some 3,500 years ago. Honeybees are an iconic species, being the world's most important pollinator of food crops. Honeybee hive products, including beeswax, honey and pollen, used both for food and medicinal purposes, support livelihoods and provide sources of income for local communities across much of Africa, through both beekeeping ...

A potential treatment for dementia and epilepsy could look to reduce the amounts of a toxic gas in the brain has been revealed in a new study using rat brain cells. The research published in Scientific Reports today [Wednesday 14 April] shows that treatments to reduce levels of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) in the brain may help to ward off damage caused by the gas. By testing rat brain cells, the team of scientists from the University of Reading, University of Leeds and John Hopkins University in the USA found that H2S is involved in blocking a key brain cell gateway ...

If you were to visit the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau a thousand years ago, you'd find conditions remarkably familiar to the present. The climate was warm, but drier than today. There were large populations of Indigenous people known as the Fremont, a who hunted and grew crops in the area. With similar climate and moderate human activity, you might expect to see the types of wildfires that are now common to the American West: infrequent, gigantic and devastating. But you'd be wrong. In a new study led by the University of Utah, researchers found that ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio (April 14, 2021)--Despite all the advances in medicine, some basic questions remain. For example, people cannot be told with any certainty how long they'll live. Nor can it be predicted exactly when a woman's childbearing years will end. However, a new study offers insights into factors that might predict a woman's age at natural menopause. Study results are published online today in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS). Factors that affect age at natural menopause are one of the most frequently studied topics in menopause-related research in recent decades, and with good reason. Knowing when a woman will enter menopause could be ...

Researchers have developed a new superbug-destroying coating that could be used on wound dressings and implants to prevent and treat potentially deadly bacterial and fungal infections. The material is one of the thinnest antimicrobial coatings developed to date and is effective against a broad range of drug-resistant bacteria and fungal cells, while leaving human cells unharmed. Antibiotic resistance is a major global health threat, causing at least 700,000 deaths a year. Without the development of new antibacterial therapies, the death toll could rise to 10 million people a year by 2050, equating to $US100 trillion in health care costs. While the health burden of fungal infections is less recognised, globally they kill about ...

Researchers from University of Hawaii and Cornell University published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that explores the challenges and opportunities with nonprofit fundraising to provide organizations with strategies they can use to increase sustainable giving and profitability. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled "Managing Members, Donors, and Member-Donors for Effective Non-profit Fundraising" and is authored by Sungjin Kim, Sachin Gupta, and Clarence Lee. Individual philanthropy is the primary funding source for many nonprofit organizations. A major challenge facing such organizations ...

While a slow resting heart rate is generally considered a good thing, investigators have some of the first evidence that if that rate decreases rapidly as children move into young adulthood, it's an indicator that cardiovascular disease may be in their future. Medical College of Georgia investigators report a significant association between a faster decrease in resting heart rate from childhood to adulthood and a larger left ventricle, the heart's major pumping chamber, over a 21-year period in hundreds of individuals who were healthy at the start. The faster decrease in heart rate also was associated with a higher level of pressure inside the blood vessels of the body, which ...

A small, light-activated molecule recently tested in mice represents a new approach to eliminating clumps of amyloid protein found in the brains of Alzheimer's disease patients. If perfected in humans, the technique could be used as an alternative approach to immunotherapy and used to treat other diseases caused by similar amyloids. Researchers injected the molecule directly into the brains of live mice with Alzheimer's disease and then used a specialized probe to shine light into their brains for 30 minutes each day for one week. Chemical analysis of the mouse brain tissue showed that the treatment significantly reduced amyloid protein. Results from additional ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Two opposing evolutionary forces explain the presence of the two different colors of spotted salamander egg masses at ponds in Pennsylvania, according to a new study led by a Penn State biologist. Understanding the processes that maintain biological diversity in wild populations is a central question in biology and may allow researchers to predict how species will respond to global change. Spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum) are a widespread species that occur across the eastern United States and return to temporary ponds in the spring to reproduce. Female salamanders lay their eggs in clumps called egg masses, which are either opaque white or completely clear. Females lay the same color ...

Though noise may change moment by moment for humans, it has a more lasting effect on trees and plants. A new Cal Poly study reveals that human noise pollution affects the diversity of plant life in an ecosystem even after the noise has been removed. This is the first study that explores the long-term effects of noise on plant communities. It was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. In a study conducted twelve years ago near natural gas wells in New Mexico, researchers found that there were 75% fewer piñon pine seedlings in noisy sites as in quiet ones. This was most likely due to the noise driving away the Woodhouse's scrub jay, which ...

PASADENA, Calif. -- A Kaiser Permanente study of nearly 50,000 people with COVID-19 suggested that regular physical activity provided strong protection from hospitalization, intensive care unit admission, and death. Even exercising inconsistently lowered the odds for severe COVID-19 outcomes when compared to people who were not active at all. The study, led by investigators in Kaiser Permanente Southern California, was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. "This is a wake-up call for the importance of healthy lifestyles and especially physical activity," said Robert E. Sallis, MD, a family and sports medicine physician at the Kaiser Permanente Fontana Medical Center. "Kaiser Permanente's motivation is to keep people healthy, and this study truly shows how important ...

DALLAS - April 13, 2021 - A chemical modification of RNA that can be influenced by diet appears to play a key role in polycystic kidney disease, an inherited disorder that is the fourth leading cause of kidney failure in the U.S., UT Southwestern researchers report in a new study. The findings, published online today in Cell Metabolism, suggest new ways to treat this incurable condition. About 600,000 Americans and 12.5 million people worldwide have autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (PKD), a condition caused by mutations in either of two genes, PKD1 or PKD2. These mutations cause kidney tubules ...

MINNEAPOLIS - Half of the children who developed the serious condition associated with COVID-19 called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) had neurologic symptoms or signs when they entered the hospital, according to preliminary research released today, April 13, 2021, that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 73rd Annual Meeting being held virtually April 17 to 22, 2021. Those symptoms included headaches, encephalopathy and hallucinations. "With this new inflammatory syndrome that develops after children are infected with ...

PITTSBURGH, April 13, 2021 - Wheezing, coughing that doesn't stop, a pale and sweaty face: clinically, severe asthma attacks look very similar from patient to patient. But biologically, not all severe asthma is the same--and a team of scientists has, for the first time, identified the key difference in people, a finding that has important implications for treatment. In a paper published today in Cell Reports, a group of scientists led by immunologists and pulmonologists at the University of Pittsburgh, in collaboration with Stanford University, used advanced tools of immunology, molecular biology and unbiased computational and bioinformatic approaches to characterize immune profiles of patients with severe ...

Skoltech researchers have developed a prototype of a fluorescence-based sensor for continuous detection of cortisol concentrations in real time, which can help monitor various health conditions. The paper was published in the journal Talanta. Cortisol, a steroid hormone commonly known as the "stress hormone," plays a significant role in the regulation of a range of physiological processes from glucose levels to blood pressure and inflammation. Reduced or elevated cortisol levels are linked to various diseases and symptoms, but accurate and reliable continuous cortisol monitoring in vivo ...

A new study finds that brachytherapy, a common procedure that delivers radiation directly to cancer cells, may continue safely, potentially without delay or antibiotics, in cervical cancer patients following uterine perforation. According to the World Health Organization, cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women. Treatment for cervical cancer often involves brachytherapy combined with daily radiation therapy. Brachytherapy delivers radiation directly to cancer cells through a tube placed within the uterus. "At times this tube can pierce the uterus and lead to a perforation," said William Small, Jr., MD, lead study author and professor and chair of radiation ...

Lessons learned from the world's protected forests: Just declaring a plot of land protected isn't enough - conservation needs thoughtful selection and enforcement. A group of scientists, many tied to Michigan State University, examined nearly 55,000 protected areas across the world to understand what it took to effectively protect their forests - a key benchmark to protecting habitat and preserving natural resources. They conclude that it's important to protect the forests exposed to the most threats in areas close to cities and be prepared to be strict in enforcing rules intended to stop deforestation. In a recent issue of Science of the Total Environment, researchers noted that more than 4 million square kilometers ...

In the southern sky, situated about 4,300 light years from Earth, lies RCW 120, an enormous glowing cloud of gas and dust. This cloud, known as an emission nebula, is formed of ionized gases and emits light at various wavelengths. An international team led by West Virginia University researchers studied RCW 120 to analyze the effects of stellar feedback, the process by which stars inject energy back into their environment. Their observations showed that stellar winds cause the region to expand rapidly, which enabled them to constrain the age of the region. These findings indicate that RCW 120 must be less than 150,000 years old, which is very young for such ...

Behind every heartbeat and brain signal is a massive orchestra of electrical activity. While current electrophysiology observation techniques have been mostly limited to extracellular recordings, a forward-thinking group of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia has identified a flexible, low-cost, and biocompatible platform for enabling richer intracellular recordings. The group's unique "across the ocean" partnership started two years ago at the Bioelectronics Winter School (BioEl) with libations and a bar napkin sketch. It has evolved into research published today in Science ...

Slow down. Baby on board. So says UBC Okanagan researcher and Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Hadi Mohammadi. His new research, conducted in collaboration with Sharif University of Technology, determines that accelerating over speed bumps poses a danger for pregnant women and their fetuses. "There is lots of research about the importance of movement for women during pregnancy," explains Mohammadi, who teaches in the School of Engineering. "Our latest research looked specifically at the impacts of sudden acceleration on a pregnant woman." Using new modelling based on data from ...

When the Webster-Kirkwood Times, a community newspaper in the greater St. Louis, Missouri area, had to endure layoffs and stop publishing its print edition -- due to a loss in revenue as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic -- its readers felt the loss and began supporting the newspaper in earnest. "A lot of times people don't know what they've got until it's gone," said Jaime Mowers, editor-in-chief of the Webster-Kirkwood Times. "Now, there is such a newfound appreciation for the newspaper. It's amazing to have the community's support, knowing we are loved that much and appreciated enough to ...